


Without Warning

by stephanericher



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Eadu, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 12:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17467781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: There are no droids to repair or crops to harvest, fibers to pass through palms and scuff them like the sides of a shuttle. There is only rain here, and no one cares enough to farm it.





	Without Warning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rosecake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/gifts).



> "How much does he tell Bodhi about his life, and how does Bodhi find out about Jyn? I'd love a scene in Eadu, in that ever-present rain"
> 
> I tried to incorporate both of those things in this fic...thank you so much for prompting these two.

No one had warned Bodhi about the rain.

One of his classmates at the Imperial Academy had clapped him on the shoulder when he’d gotten the assignment. "Bad luck, mate, the winds’ll get you.”

The winds are bad, no question—landing is difficult; taking off always feels as if he’s going to be blown over the edge and impaled on a rock when the ship shatters below the landing pad—but he’s been trained for them. The ship knows how to react to them. It’s the rain that’s the issue. The landing pad’s too slippery; trying to see through a viewport is mostly guesswork (and the first few times Bodhi had flown in he’d missed the depot altogether and had had to burn extra fuel circling back, wondering if this was a cruel prank or some mission designed to cull weaklings or weed out the ones who wouldn’t cut it).

And the rain is constant. Waiting for a shipment, grabbing a less-than-standard-issue meal pack in the mess hall, attempting to take a walk down the dimly-lit corridors, Bodhi can’t escape it. The constant murmur batters the walls and ceilings, as if this building were constructed for the maximum annoyance possible. Coupled with the shrieking winds, it’s a wonder anyone manages to be productive here, especially for delicate, important projects.

Galen says you get used to it, but whether the you is just him, or everyone, or Bodhi, is unclear. Though there is still so much about Galen that remains a mystery to Bodhi, locked down or out of reach, blurred out by the fog, he can tell that Galen is a man who pretends to get used to a lot. This life, on Eadu, with no way out—a voluntary prison. Or not. Perhaps he was kidnapped, held for ransom at a price no one would pay, enslaved in the Outer Rim as a child.

“I used to be a farmer,” Galen says.

The rain peels away from the viewport in his room, slowly. Still there, a steady slap.

“Before I was a farmer, I was an engineer.”

“And now you’re an engineer again?”

Galen’s face is in shadow; his smile is not bitter but it’s not happy, either. Bodhi senses he’s asked the wrong question.

“Sorry.”

“No need,” says Galen.

His palm is soft on Bodhi’s, used to holding pens and datapads and keying in numbers. There are no droids to repair or crops to harvest, fibers to pass through palms and scuff them like the sides of a shuttle. There is only rain here, and no one cares enough to farm it.

“What was it like? Farming?”

A question about the daughter Galen has (had?) rises to Bodhi’s lips but he catches it. If Galen is leading to her, her mother, Bodhi won’t force him off the path—but he won’t try and bring it up first. Everyone has their sore subjects, and he’s the last person who should be prodding at sore subjects like this one.

“I didn’t really like the farming part I got to solve problems, little things, every day, but the goal of those was to keep me there. I felt like I wasn’t much use sometimes, but…”

“It was worth it?”

“Yes. At the time. I worked alone a lot of the time, and I could teach Jyn some things—she took to farming more than I did. Because she didn’t have time to get accustomed to a different life, I’d expect, though I don’t really know.”

Galen rubs his chin. Bodhi waits. Galen drops his hand, back to Bodhi’s, and sighs.

“Now I’m doing what I can. Because there really is nothing else.”

He looks Bodhi square in the face, implications just below his surface. The implications that Bodhi’s been afraid to grasp at, like minnows in a lake, under a glassy surface. He’s been able to see them the whole time, for what they are, but he hasn’t wanted to break the cover and make it real, accept the burden of risk onto himself. But that’s the coward’s way out. If he takes it on—he could die, blaster bullet to the artery, failed plug on the shuttle if anyone cares enough to make it look like an accident.

Who’s going to notice he’s gone and ask after him, and who has the clout to make it go anywhere? He’s less valuable than a droid, his body not recyclable or worth shit as parts. He’s no Galen Erso, trapped in a medium-security prison heading off some secret imperial project. He’s—nobody, but to Galen he’s somebody. At least, Bodhi would like to believe that, and Galen couldn’t have chosen him at random. Pick a pilot, any pilot, the thought is ridiculous and Bodhi hates himself for thinking that cynically.

“I’m sorry,” says Galen. “Bodhi, I am. This—I just want you to be able to have more than this. I don’t have much to go on, but we’ve destroyed a lot of lives.”

The kyber Bodhi takes from the temple, sacred material from a desecrated place, the Guardians now reduced to street beggars (and Bodhi keeps waiting for one of them to shoot him, notice the shame painted bright on his face and body, the imperial insignias that feel branded deep in his skin by now, and yet they never do). Home, split open, a war zone teeming with troopers, while he is a gear in the machine that takes it apart piece by piece.

Galen’s farm. Galen’s wife, and his daughter (wherever she is). Whatever the cost of the thing he’s building. Every moment they stay alive is another they sink deeper into this debt.

“But you’ll make it right,” says Galen. “A little bit.”

His hand clutches Bodhi’s wrist tighter. His eyes do not plead; they are not on their most desperate hope. There is only resolve, will, hope that sways but on strong foundations, dug deep into the rocks below. Hope that Bodhi grasps onto, plunging in below the surface and shattering his way out.  
  



End file.
